Francis Quarles.
In the afternoon, the commissary going out in search of the objects of
his journey, grain and bullocks for the troops, L'Isle strolled out
with the ladies to survey the curiosities of Evora, and Moodie
followed closely Lady Mabel's steps.
"If I am to play the part of _cicerone_," said L'Isle, "I will begin
by reminding you that the history of many races and eras is
indissolubly connected with the Peninsula, and especially the southern
part of it. Here we find the land of _Tarshish_ of Scripture, so well
known to the Phoenicians, who, in an adjacent province of Spain, built
another Sidon, and founded Cadiz before Hector and Achilles fought at
Troy.
"Yet they found the Celto-Iberian here before them--who after that
built Evora, according to Portuguese historians, some eight or ten
centuries before Christ. The Greeks, too, stretched their commerce and
their colonies to this land. The Carthaginians made themselves masters
of this country. The Romans turned them out, to give place in time to
the Vandals; who were driven over into Africa by the Goths--whose
dominion was, at the end of two centuries, overthrown by the Arabs;
who, after a war of seven centuries, were expelled in turn by the
descendants of their Gothic rivals.
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